Not every team in the major professional sports leagues has won a championship since the Knicks last did, back in 1973, but it sure can feel that way. 19 NBA teams have captured titles since then — two of them while they were in the ABA — including every single one of the Knicks’ rivals. (Even the hapless Nets! Who played in Long Island at the time!) The only New York team that hasn’t managed it in that span are the Jets, who, let’s be honest, barely count anyway. Another temporal perspective: The last time the Knicks won was the same year an already-irritating Queens real-estate failson made his first-ever appearance in The New York Times. I was not born yet, and if you are too young to remember, say, Jimmy Carter being elected, you probably weren’t either. It has been a long, long drought.

53 years of futility have not stopped the Knicks from remaining one of the most popular, beloved sports franchises on the planet. Knicks fans have been filling Madison Square Garden for decades despite horrible teams, a truly wretched owner, and the highest ticket prices in the NBA. (And as we’ve consistently seen these playoffs, they’ve been filling opposing teams’ arenas as well.) I’ve been writing about their devotion, my devotion, in this publication for nearly 20 years now. And this year: It may finally happen. The Knicks are in the NBA Finals.

I’m not sure there would be a bigger story in sports this decade than the Knicks winning a championship. There are some Knicks fans who want to pull up the ladder, who say that if you weren’t here for the Jerome James era, or the Larry Brown shitshow, you don’t get to be a part of this now. I am not one of these fans. This is as fun as sports gets: You are welcome to join the bandwagon. It’ll be a delight to have you, and we’ve got room for everyone.

But if you are just hopping on board, here’s a little FAQ for you to get you up to speed — to make it look like you’ve been here all along.

What was the last championship Knicks team like?

In 1973, the Knicks had Willis Reed, Dave DeBusschere, future Senator Bill Bradley, Earl Monroe, future Hall of Fame coach and miserable Knicks team president Phil Jackson and, of course, the great Walt “Clyde” Frazier. The Knicks also won in 1970; that’s the year Reed famously limped from the locker room to return and help them beat the hated Lakers in game seven of the finals.

Have they been close since then?

Kind of, but not really. Their last Finals appearance came in 1999, but that was a bit of a fluke. They were a No. 8 seed in a lockout-shortened season who........

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